Temperature induced spin switching in SmFeO3 single crystal

Abstract

The prospect of controlling the magnetization (M) of a material is of great importance from the viewpoints of fundamental physics and future applications of emerging spintronics. A class of rare-earth orthoferrites RFeO3 (R is rare-earth element) materials exhibit striking physical properties of spin switching and magnetization reversal induced by temperature and/or applied magnetic field. Furthermore, due to the novel magnetic, magneto-optic and multiferroic properties etc., RFeO 3 materials are attracting more and more interests in recent years. We have prepared and investigated a prototype of RFeO3 materials, namely SmFeO 3 single-crystal. And we report magnetic measurements upon both field cooling (FC) and zero-field cooling (ZFC) of the sample, as a function of temperature and applied magnetic field. The central findings of this study include that the magnetization of single-crystal SmFeO3 can be switched by temperature, and tuning the magnitude of applied magnetic field allows us to realize such spin switching even at room temperature.